Personal Contribution History - Vol. 3

WARNING:Reader beware! The content harnessed within this blog is highly egocentric and may be self-promotional and true. You can find the first volume of my egocentricism here.

Personal Contribution History: Volume Three of Twoby semioldguy

Preface

If you haven’t started at the beginning of this journey, I encourage you to do so now by clicking here. It is nearly four years to date since I have registered my Team Liquid account. Considering I have no idea what happened after the last chapter in Volume Two, I actually had to do some research to find out about myself, which is an interesting feeling to say the least. I found out things about me that even I didn’t know. As much as this will be a recounting of contributions and events, it is also, for me, a journey of rediscovery. I believe I will begin right where I left off.

Chapter Twelve: Fantasy Set Me Free

Fantasy Starcraft had taken off nicely, though I had no idea how quickly it would grow and develop.

For that, I have others to thank: Sonuvbob, Hot_Bid and Abydos1. Without them Fantasy Proleague would not have been able to thrive the way it did. Initially I had kept track of everyone’s teams, trades, scores, ranking, etc. all by hand (or more accurately by Excel spreadsheets). The original plan was for everyone to PM me everything fantasy related. It worked fine, only a couple hundred people played (which was great by my opinion).

Soon Fantasy Proleague was taken out of my hands, a child sent off to boarding school where it could grow up to become a proper gentleman. Coding was done to help automate everything I had once kept track of manually.

Fantasy Proleague participation literally exploded!

There was more buzz and excitement than I could have imagined. It also had the side-effect of more people caring about and paying attention to proleague. It was awesome, hundreds of people all competing to see who knew best, and no work required by me for upkeep. It had turned into something I had only ever fantasized about (pun intended). It was my child and it was good to see the feature become a mainstay here at Team Liquid.

Fantasy Proleague is still thriving today, even if my own Fantasy team this season is not.

Chapter Thirteen: The Beginning of the End

At the end of Chapter Eleven I had proclaimed that shipping would not go through me any longer and that I hated packing boxes. If my life were a movie, it would cut from that statement to a scene where 400 pounds of WeMade merchandise is escorted into my apartment as a tower of boxes taller than I was loomed over me from one side of my room.

Less than a month after posting volume two, things were put into motion to secure our next progaming products to get out to the community. After arduous negotiations and us holding out for the very best WeMade products (i.e. shirts/jerseys) we started a preorder system to know exactly how much we would need.

Funny side-story:

Those trying to sell us the WeMade merchandise were really set on promoting Nada Teddy Bears to us. I believe that the marketing team believed that the majority of sales that Team Liquid would be doing would be to a similar audience as was present in Korea.

However, here at Team Liquid, we do not have an abundance of screaming teenage fangirls for all the progamers... even if the still-continued existence of the “Nada’s Body” thread may suggest otherwise. Our fanbase here is predominately male, and most of us do not hoard teddy bear collections (openly).

I think the WeMade sales team thought we would be able to unload a ton of these bears for them, which I think they had prematurely overproduced due to some marketing miscommunication with other Starcraft teams releasing an entire line of progamer teddy bears which never really came to fruition. It was the item they were most readily and interested in offering, though probably the thing we were least excited about receiving.

Anyway, from hundreds of orders I believe we only sold twelve Nada teddy bears. I’m sure the WeMade sales team were disappointed about that.

Though what may have been a disappointment in the bear sales, I believe the jersey and shirt sales knocked them off their feet. They didn’t have enough to send us right away and it took several months, opposed to the couple weeks it was supposed to take, for me to even get the product to begin shipping at all.

Chapter Fourteen: Not Your Average Joe’s

Allow me to diverge from shipping for the moment. Another OSL Finals was approaching and Diggity and I were to make it the most epic SoCal Finals party to date. Back in the day we had dinner every week at Joe’s pizza and got to know the owner a bit. We approached him with the offer to rent out his restaurant the night of the finals for our party from midnight to five the next morning. We booked it, along with a pizza buffet for everyone who was willing to pay for food.

We expected about fifty people to show, which we thought was generous, but easily doable. We regularly ha d a couple dozen for the parties held in my home and with larger space to accommodate, as well as being a public location, we thought we could attract more people.

In the end we unlocked our achievement and got 58 to show, including Day[9] making a guest appearance for casting. But he stopped casting after Fantasy won the first two games due to a sympathetic depression coinciding with Jaedong losing.

Jaedong then went on the win the last three uncasted games and win his second OSL title.

I believe it was Sean’s stopped casting that turned the match around.

We returned to Joe’s again for future finals parties and our success grew by quite a bit, nearly hitting an attendance of 200 people to pack themselves into Joe’s restaurant on the last one we did.With standing room only, and barely any left at that, the Starleague Finals parties are always a blast, and it is with a heavy heart that I think of them now and how they’ve begun to fade away in more recent times here in San Diego.

It could be time for them to make a return.

Chapter Fifteen: Shipping My Heart Out

About three months after getting all the WeMade preorders in, I finally get the stuff I am supposed to ship. When I see the mass I immediately knew I should have stopped myself after the MBC gear. I personally believe the massive load put onto myself by this was a contributing factor into my departure from the community from which I have just recently returned.

The WeMade stuff couldn’t have come at a worse time, it was right in the middle of moving apartments, working out graduation and a whole summer’s long of out of town vacation. I trudged through it as best as I could and felt that I was timely for most orders (much more timely than WeMade themselves had been for certain). Though I know I was not as timely in other orders and it took a long time for me to get through the hundreds of orders and finally reclaim back large portions of my room.

If the delay in shipping wasn’t bad enough, there was also a problem with the order. Now I know in your head you’re thinking, “semioldguy, you’re an idiot, you should have double-checked the order when you first got it.” And in your head I’ll reply “I did. And they matched the numbers we were supposed to receive.”

Somewhere along the line the counting of preorders got fucked up and as I was nearing the end of the product I had I realized that it wouldn’t fill everyone’s remaining orders.

Panic and stress were not things this shipping arrangement needed more of.

Apologies and refunds were handed out and what could be shipped, was shipped. I knew that I wouldn’t be doing this again. (Although knowing that previously hadn’t worked, I hope it actually does this time, and it looks like it will).

The end was like a bullet that slowly moves its way through my liver. It was painful and dragged on longer than I would have liked. Address corrections and dealing with it all through e-mails and PM’s. I just wanted it to end.

It didn’t.

Months later I was still getting a few packages from time to time in my mail. Undeliverable addresses. It was hard to contact some of them, others I was never able to get a hold of.

Finishing my task was the last strand still holding me to the community. When that last bit holding me to my duty vanished, I drifted away.

Chapter Sixteen: Lost

The year of 2010 was marked by me doing next to absolutely nothing and all but disappearing from the community I loved. Diggity dragged me out of the depths for my last Finals party in May, which I attended despite having no idea what was going on in the world of Starcraft at the time. After the party I promptly returned to my state of unknowing and disappeared, never to be heard from again.

I guess you were waiting to make this post as your official reason for leaving since you were kinda nonchalant about it when first asked. I think most people would realize how ridiculous of a task it was for you to take alone [ although never 100% ] and if you had made this kinda post earlier in the process people could have helped out or lightened the load somehow. It really makes you appreciate what TL does for the community and how people in similar situations like Susie handled things.

Imho, I don't think you should have left the community because clearly you were missed by a lot of people and it sucks that this whole shipping business messed with your interest in starcraft as a whole. But shit happens, and at least you're back. I would say there's lessons to be learned by all from your experience.

On January 19 2011 09:35 semioldguy wrote:I think it was the timing more than anything, but a large workload nonetheless. It was never my sole reason for leaving, but that full story is perhaps for some other time.

TL is a strange place nowadays, I hope you can get used to it. And your contributions were never forgotten, I could still hear the river, whispering tales about SoG the MBC hats and the glorious FPL teams of season 1

Heh, I don't even have access to that forum anymore. I can probably allow myself access to it, but I'm retarded and haven't found out how yet (though I don't think I'd join you guys, big time commitment, those games).

On January 19 2011 10:25 GHOSTCLAW wrote:SOG are we doing pizza again for OSL? *please say yes*

If you would like to plan, organize and pay for it, then yes! Otherwise, no, not this time. Though I'd like to get back to getting parties together eventually

Welcome back, semioldguy! I've never really seen you post around here, but I've heard of you. Thank you for all the contribution that you've made to this site. I find myself taking a lot of your contributions for granted. ^^;

On January 19 2011 16:46 Diggity wrote:I am thinking of doing something for the GSL finals.

Stay tuned

Also WB Semi. Give me a call!

Will do, also I might even see you this weekend if I get home in time from what I hear.

On January 19 2011 13:50 SonuvBob wrote:I definitely cared about and watched a lot more PL thanks to FPL. But I guess it's a black hole, since Abydos1 also disappeared off the face of the Internet after completing it.

Well, Hot_Bid worked a lot on Fantasy Stuff and he's still here (though I think Ken's likely indestructible)